A night that didn’t start off the way the Minnesota Twins wanted, ended in some offensive fireworks with a dominate victory over Baltimore.
The Minnesota Twins began their 3-game road series against the Baltimore Orioles on Monday. With Kyle Gibson on the hill, winless before the game, things didn’t look too promising for the Twinkies in Game 1.
It started off the way that many Twins’ fans feared it would. After a scoreless first inning, the Orioles got 5 runs in the second inning. It started with a Trey Mancini RBI double followed up by a JJ Hardy RBI single, and ended with a 3-run home-run by Adam Jones. Quickly, the Twins were down 5-0.
The Twins opted to stick with Gibson through that tough inning, and it paid off for them. In addition, he ended up pitching 5 innings, giving up only one more run. He finished with a stat line of 5 innings pitched, 7 hits and 6 earned runs. Gibson also got the win.
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Skip ahead to the 5th inning, when the offense got rolling for the Minnesota Twins. Still losing the game by a score of 6-2, Minnesota got RBI’s from Max Kepler (2), Eduardo Escobar and Jorge Polanco to tie the game at 6.
In the very next inning, the Twins took a commanding 12-6 lead off of some big hits by Joe Mauer, Miguel Sano and Eduardo Escobar. Despite a rough start, the Twins had regained the lead and refused to look back.
After a 9th inning home-run by Miguel Sano, the Twins extended their lead and won the game 14-7. Kyle Gibson earned his first win of the season, but the story of the night was their offense.
They set a season-high in runs with 14 and hits with 21. Furthermore, Sano recorded his 11th home-run of the season and helped his All-Star Game campaign. Finally, Jorge Polanco and Sano had 4 hits each in the game.
Next: Twins vs Orioles Preview
In Conlusion
The Minnesota Twins have been inconsistent offensively, but this is the kind of performance they needed. Hopefully this will bleed into the next couple of games against the Orioles and is a sign of things to come.